With his astonishing future vision, Howard V. Hendrix has emerged as one of the new masters of science fiction, drawing extraordinary praise from his debut novel Lightpathsand the follow-up, Standing Wave. Now he meshes virtual reality, deep-space exploration, and human nature in a novel starkly breathtaking in its portrayal of the quest for meaning, against a backdrop of scientific and spiritual chaos. During the first, turbulent decades of the twenty-first century, an artifact that resembles an angel s shoulder blade is unearthed from California s La Brea tar pit, a startling discovery that will forever alter the lives of five people and send them reeling toward one blinding moment of transcendental light."